izigame.me

I was pretty torn on this game. I very much enjoyed the first 75% of the game. It was shaping up to probably be a good solid B tier game. The end game absolutely ruined it for me and probably brings it down to a C tier game. It's really not a terrible game. It has some good things but the end game really ruined the fun for me.

Positives:
The game is quite immersive and has great atmosphere and art direction. It uses a very unconventional setting that helps make if feel unique and actually pulls it off quite well. A Sci-Fi, ancient greek space station with some lovecraftian vibes. Sounds crazy but really it worked quite well.

Character progression is well paced and rewards you well for finding hidden areas and completing platforming challenges/puzzles. Upgrades feel meaningful and are pretty regularly paced. There was a stretch in the later part of the mid game where it felt a little long between upgrades though.

Neutral:
It’s a pretty linear experience. It’s more of an atmosphere/narrative driven experience. There are some branching paths, but there is still a pretty set path through the game that you have to follow. I didn’t mind it much, but some metroidvania fans might be put off by this aspect.

Traversal mechanics are not just your standard fare metroidvania mechanics. The main mechanic is the lantern ability. This is basically the bash ability from Ori with the ability to create your own bash points anywhere and doubles as your double jump and dash abilities.

Combat is decent. It encourages parries and aerial moves for evasion. I enjoyed it, but might not be for everyone. Combat has a few rough edges too. There is some questionable hit boxes. The spear actually demands quite a bit of precision that some aim assist or the ability to adjust the aim sensitivity would have helped with a lot. It is a pretty invaluable piece of your kit. Some parry widows feel poorly telegraphed and/or nonsensical. Difficulty tends towards groups of enemies with random attack timings that can make even a small group of mobs difficult to deal with. There is also a pretty significant stagger if you mess up which can really amplify that problem. Overall none of it felt terrible and was mostly just minor annoyances until late game.

Minor Negatives:
Map design and progression is kind nonsensical and confusing. The game is a pretty linear, but the path through the world map is not at all. It warps you around to completely separate sections of the map. It can be pretty disorienting and makes intuitively knowing where to head to next and/or backtracking needlessly difficult. There are several places where biomes are only connected up in one place. Biomes are visually distinct, but are sub-divided into smaller sub-sections and remembering exactly what was going on in a particular sub-section can be a lot to keep track of. Some biomes are interrupted by a few scenes from a different biome in the middle of it only to switch back again past those scenes.

The fast travel system in this game is nonsensical and overly complicated. There are 4 forms of fast travel. Teleporters, trams, and two different kinds of save points. All teleporters could be removed and changed to trams instead. Later biomes could have been gated off in the tram station to ensure players arent accessing them before they were intended to. There is already a couple examples of this in game. Save points also act as fast travel but only within the biome unless you are at the super save point for that biome, which doesnt exist for every biome. The super save points will allow you to travel to other super save points or to any save point in that biome. Its needless complication that actively makes the game worse and leaves fast traveling feeling annoying and time consuming. Here is one example of a fast travel route I had to take to backtrack for a pickup, a path that took me 2+ mins of looking at the map to work out: Tram to biome close to super save> walk to super save A and fast travel super save B> Fast travel from super save B to save point C> walk from save point C to save point D in next biome> fast travel from save point D to save point E> walk from save point E to teleporter> teleport to location.

Major negatives:
What really ruined it for me was the late game traversal and boss encounters. This is the only metroidvania I have played where traversal felt worse in the end game than it did in the early game. Partially due to the fast travel system and map design I mentioned but also the late game level design and platforming. Instead of being rewarded with ease of movement it feels like you are being punished. Once you have the final lantern jump everything becomes about overly complex platforming puzzles with precise execution requirements. Theres not much platforming challenge prior to this, and even this it not really testing your platforming in any traditional sense. It’s playing “the floor is lava” for longer than your movement abilities allow out of the box. It requires chaining all of the lantern jumps with a couple of earlier abilities that were barely used before and/or navigating tight corridors with more bends than the jump lanterns available to you and electric floors that reset your position when you touch them. Rather than feeling like late game difficulty/challenge progression it felt like tacked on padding to extend the end game.

The other issue was the late game bosses. To be fair, all of the bosses throughout the game suffered from these same problems some, but the last couple of bosses really turned the dial up to 11. It went from feeling kind of cheap and a little lazy to flat out unfair and infuriating. I wont describe them in depth due to spoilers and this already being a long review. Suffice to say the game uses some cheap arena traps and adds in boss fights too much. There is no pattern to learn on the arena traps or the attack timing from adds so a lot of it comes down to luck and patience more than skill.

Conclusion:
I really enjoyed the first 3/4 of the game. The end game really ruined it for me though. Everything felt tacked on and padded out to drag out the end game. It has some other rough edges, but nothing too game breaking. C tier game. Probably a recommended B tier if not for the really maddening end game padding. Others might not be as bothered by those complaints or actually welcome them as the game does not offer too much combat/platforming challenge prior to this. It felt very out of place with the rest of the game though and left me feeling like it overstayed its welcome when I should have just been wrapping up the home stretch of an otherwise pleasant experience. There is some good stuff here and may be worth picking up on sale if you don’t mind those things and are looking for a new 2d action platformer with a lot of atmosphere.